N.K. FM: Nuclear issue will be resolved if U.S. ends 'hostile policy'

North Korea's foreign minister said Saturday that the standoff over the country's nuclear weapons program will be resolved if the U.S. ends its "hostile policy" toward the communist nation.

Ri Su-yong made the remark in an address to the U.N. General Assembly, claiming that Washington's "hostile policy, nuclear threats and stifling strategy" resulted in the country's decision to become a "nuclear weapons state."

"The nuclear deterrent of the DPRK is not intended to threaten or attack others. Neither is it a bargaining chip to be exchange for something else," Ri said. "The nuclear issue will be resolved if and when the threat to our sovereignty and right to life is removed in substance with termination of the U.S. hostile policy against DPRK."

Ri is the first North Korean foreign minister to attend the U.N. meeting in 15 years. His trip to New York also is the latest in a series of overseas trips by senior North Korean officials that are seen as aimed at reducing the country's diplomatic isolation.

During the address, Ri filed a strong complaint that the U.N. Security Council turned a blind eye to joint military exercises between the U.S. and South Korea that Pyongyang has long claimed are a rehearsal for invasion of the North.

"The war exercises focused on landing, long-range nuclear bombing and commando operations aimed at occupying the capital city of another country can never be viewed as 'defensive,'" he said.

"The claim that these war exercises are annual in nature is just a veiled attempt to succeed in surprise attack after creating 'chronic immunity' to them."

Earlier this year, Ri said the North officially referred the issue of such exercises to the Security Council because they "seriously endanger peace and security of the Korean Peninsula and the region as a whole." However, the council "turned its back," he said.

Ri also spoke about human rights, reiterating the country's position that it is open to "dialogue and cooperation for genuine human rights that have nothing to do with political motivation and hypocrisy in all their manifestations."

The remark reflects Pyongyang's long-running claim that the U.S. and South Korea raise the issue of Pyongyang's human rights violations to take political advantage of the issue in an ultimate attempt to topple the regime.

Ri also said that he sought to participate in an unprecedented high-level meeting that the U.S. hosted earlier this week to discuss the North's human rights problem, but the U.S. prevented the North's participation.

"The government of the DPRK is willing to promote human rights dialogue and cooperation on an equal footing with other countries which are not hostile to it," he said.

On relations with South Korea, Ri claimed the North is "sincerely striving both in words and deeds" to improve inter-Korean ties, but rejected the South's proposal for laying the groundwork for unification of the divided states.

Ri said the South "should refrain from prattling about the unrealistic and fictitious proposal for national unification copied from the formula of other countries." (Yonhap)